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Hi,

I have this recepy of mixing high volume alchohol with ricewine which is around 16%.
Reason for this is to make ricewine more than 21% so I can store it for long time.
Different to wine, rice wine only can last few months and could easly turn to vinegar or off.
This is one of traditional way of making rice wine that will last years.
There are ather way to make ricewine last long but I use this method.
This kind of ricewine is called "Gwa hwa ju" in Korean meaning ricewine that can last summer.

Anyway, my question is why do I get cloudy stuff when I mix ricewine with high volume alchohol.

When I mix 40percent alchohol with ricewine clouds forms slowly but mix with 80percent stuff, I can see it happen instantly.
It will settle and get clear after few weeks, leaving white sediments at the bottom of the bottle and then can get siphoned.
Could it be salt? Fosil oil? or protain??

Awaiting for any answers.

Thanks.

it happens when 40% and water meet

Adverse Effects wrote:it happens when 40% and water meet

What?

Addin' water to 40% booze doesn't cause cloudin' unless the alcohol is full of fusil oils.

I tried mixing 95.6 with dry sherry to try and get a decent port and exactly the same thing happened. It does eventually settle and can be racked quite easlily. I don't know for sure but I think the high ABV precipitates remaining solids immediately. Could be yeast or sugars that didn't ferment. I know for sure it's not the alcohol because it doesn't cloud with distilled water.
My port never did amount to anything by the way.

tails would be my guess also, had some cloud and redistilled with better cuts and turned out fine.

What he's talking about is not taily cloud, but the same precipitate that i am dealing with.

So far i have isolated it (i think) to be my town water supply. If i cut 65% brown spirit with even filtered town water down to 40% it forms a drifting sludge down the bottom of the bottle. Bottled spring water doesn't seem to be doing it at this stage.
It only seems to happen at this time of the year (start of our summer) even spirit that i have been cutting and drinking all year with no problem has started to do this all of a sudden.

I'm also thinking it may be some sort of protein thing...

No tails, worm...it's wine. I'm guessing proteins.

What kind of 40% are you using, hoonaberry? If it has too much tails in it it will go cloudy. It could be something in the wine as well like minime said.

theholymackerel wrote:What?

Addin' water to 40% booze doesn't cause cloudin' unless the alcohol is full of fusil oils.

then how come every time i tip COINTREAU (shop bought) over ice instant cloudy white?

I have a potstill and need to still 3times to get 80%. I only collect alchohol until 90degrees celcius so I think it's not tails.
When I mix it with distilled water then it's fine.
Since rice haave slight amount of salt and water has slight amount of salt as well, I think it might be salt or protain. Same thing happens when I mix it with tap water but it dosen't get clear so I think it is different matter than tap water clouding.
could it be invisible yeast that was not settled when I cleared ricewine? I didn't filter the wine but left it in fridge for about 1week to settle it then cyphoned it.

hoonaberry wrote: I didn't filter the wine but left it in fridge for about 1week to settle it then cyphoned it.

I think your right about the yeast. The winemaking shops in these parts all filter wine thought high pressure filtering systems. It definitely clears better than just settling. The term they've been using is "brighter" wine.
Anyway you noted that it does settle to the bottom and you can rack it off. It's likely a pain in the ass but I'm sure there's nothing harmful in there. By the way, I think your way of preserving is far better than the crap they offer at the wine stores

Hmm... So strong chances are that it is yeast...
I wish if I have microscope or something so I can see what it is.

Anyway,

Happy New Year!

punkin wrote:So far i have isolated it (i think) to be my town water supply. If i cut 65% brown spirit with even filtered town water down to 40% it forms a drifting sludge down the bottom of the bottle.

I found that clouding happens whe I mix 80% with filtered tab water. Must be bad filter.
Never happen with distilled water.

Adverse Effects wrote:

theholymackerel wrote:What?

Addin' water to 40% booze doesn't cause cloudin' unless the alcohol is full of fusil oils.

then how come every time i tip COINTREAU (shop bought) over ice instant cloudy white?

A tiny bit of research will answer that question.

For the moment I'll leave you with this question to answer yerself too... why does 40% abv whiskey, rum, vodka, brandy, etc NOT instantly get cloudy white when added to ice or water? What is different about Cointreau?


PS: You takin' the fact that cointreau clouds when poured over ice and expandin' that to include all alcohols is faulty logic.

theholymackerel wrote:

Adverse Effects wrote:

theholymackerel wrote: For the moment I'll leave you with this question to answer yerself too... why does 40% abv whiskey, rum, vodka, brandy, etc NOT instantly get cloudy white when added to ice or water? What is different about Cointreau?

Interesting... It actually is true that when I add ice made from tap water dosen't give me clouds but straight tap water dose...
Mabey I should experment and investigate this matter bit more.
Anyway, mixing with distilled water is fine....

now I'm confused......

That bit wasn't directed at you hoonaberry, it's part of the side conversation, that's why you're confused.

I am up to about the same point as you, cept i am dealing with distilled spirits and water not wine and water. So i can discount (pretty much) it being yeast solids. Unless minute particles are being carried over in the steam then the sludgy looking precipitate is developing either
a) From something in the water
or
b) From something in the distillate
or
c) in my case, but not yours, form something in the oak sticks.

Like you, i have discovered that if i take a fresh distillation, cut it only with spring water from the bottles and mature it...i don't get the precipitate.
If i use town water, even run through a brand new twin filter setup of 5 micron paper element and 1 micron carbon element, i get less precipitate than plain town water, but still get some.
Funny fact as well, like i stated in earlier posts i only get it starting at this time of year (spring to summer).

I have no answers for ya, but believe i share your problem

Interesting thing is when I mix spirit with ice that was made from tapwater dosen't give clouds but straight tapwater dose.
Could it be some chemicals in tap water causing it? Mabey during freezing water stage, some chemicals disapear?
Could be possible, right?
Mabey one day, I should try melt ice and mix it with spirit and see if I get clouds.

hoonaberry wrote:Interesting thing is when I mix spirit with ice that was made from tapwater dosen't give clouds but straight tapwater dose.
Could it be some chemicals in tap water causing it? Mabey during freezing water stage, some chemicals disapear?
Could be possible, right?
Mabey one day, I should try melt ice and mix it with spirit and see if I get clouds.

I hook ed my water supply to my ice maker on hot water side.Seems water being heated caused mineral and such to settle out of it. .Or so Ive been tole

yeah, aparently oil dissolves into alchohol-

i used to work in a machine shop and the coolant was an oil which was made mixable in water-
you literally pour the oil into water and it turns white, mixing into water...

with really high percentage alchohol, that oil is completly disolved into the alchohol, but
when you add water, those oils reform, and since they're heavier they fall to bottom-

it happens with ouzo-
"When mixing Ouzo with water, it turns whitish and opaque. The reason is that the anise oil dissolves and becomes invisible when mixed with a conventional alcohol content, but as soon as the alcohol content is reduced, the essential oils transform into white crystals, which you cannot see through."

by the way, those rice wines are not too dis-similar to european wines, the major difference is in the enzyme which converts
the starch to sugar, but european wines eventually turn to vinegar also-
there are 2 main ways to stop fermentation,

fortified wine: adding ethanol to raise alchohol level and kill off yeast / enzymes
add sorbate: potassium sorbate also kills them off, thereby preserving the food/wine

whew... thats alot of typing

as for the distilled water, i would test this out with some ouzo, since that alchohol is cheap and goes really white
with very little water because of the aniseed oils-
pour 2 glasses, add tap water to one, then distilled to another...

my guess is that other spirits may not have many oils, so they won't have the same reaction, but then
who the hell knows, just drink it lol